"A compact, lightweight little Python script which uses GtkRecentManager to watch for updates to all globally-available Recently Used lists (the ones that appear in Open dialogs and the like) and then filters out anything in the folders you blacklist.

Blacklist entries are hashed to make reading the blacklist not worth the effort."

It was a lot easier than this in Lisa with kde. You just go to recent history (maya mate does not have a recent history) and then you would right click and select clear recent documents. I'm glad bleachbit exist, but it is a bit complicated.

The other option is to add the "Menu Bar" to one of your panels and, just like gnome2, the Places menu has the Recent Documents list at the end and you can clear them from there.

Edit: The final option is to r-click on the Mint Menu, go to prefs -> Options tab, and check the "Show recent documents plugin". This adds a pane to the Mint Menu that has a clear button on the bottom.

In Cinnamon (Maybe in MATE too, but I don't know), if you have enabled Recent Files (right-click on the Menu, select Menu settings, and then check "Show recent files"), the "Clear list" option is at the bottom of the list of recent files.